Hard times filled circus king's last years

On Dec. 2, 1936, Sarasota awoke to the news that John Ringling, the last of the circus brothers, had passed away at his New York City apartment.

The banner headline in that morning's Sarasota Herald informed its readers "JOHN RINGLING DIES IN NEW YORK." Feature stories, along with his photograph, recounted Mister John's illustrious circus career, his varied interests outside the big top, even an article recalling his "love for trees and flowers," intoning that the Australian pines he planted were his pets.

The flag atop the American Legion War Memorial in the center of Five Points in downtown Sarasota was lowered to half staff, as was the flag at the circus winter quarters. A wreath of flowers was laid on the steps of the John and Mable Ringling Art Museum, and Mayor Earnest A. Smith sent a wreath to Ringling's New York residence.

The great man had died and Sarasota was in mourning.

John Ringling's final years were not enviable. The great showman, king of the circus world, avid art collector, successful businessman, developer and promoter of Sarasota, and considered one of the wealthiest men in the country had fallen on hard times — the slings and arrows he suffered during his last six years were almost endless.

His first wife, Mable, the love of his life with whom he shared the trappings of his triumphant rise in fortune, died in 1929, leaving him despondent.

His close friend, Sam Gumpertz, backstabbed him by helping to wrest away his control of the circus. He feuded with his nephews, John and Henry North, whom he came to distrust. He finally cut them out of his will with a codicil that also reduced the estate of their mother — Ringling's only sister, Ida, who had also fallen out of his favor.

He was never on good terms with brother Charles' widow, Edith; their mutual dislike was ongoing.

Cash strapped

After control of the circus had been taken from him, "Mister John" became a persona non grata on the circus lot. The newspapers were heralding the widowed Edith — "Miss Charlie" — as Woman Who Rules A Circus. Gumpertz was dubbed "Circus Boss." Ringling must have been galled.

His second marriage, to Emily Haag Buck, which began in 1930 and seemingly based on her cash-on-hand (she had plenty, he had none) was an unmitigated disaster. It ended in a long, drawn-out, acrimonious, tabloid-type divorce with juicy claims and counter claims played up in the press through the country.

Then there was Richard Fuchs. Ringling's personal secretary from 1919 to 1934 turned on him with a vengeance.

In a four-page, single-spaced letter of resignation he recounted their history and threatened to tell anyone who would listen, including the tax men of the Federal Government, where Ringling's business skeletons were buried. Said he, "I expect to be very frank and open with the government."

Throw into the mix of misery that while John Ringling was a multi-millionaire on paper — with Rolls Royces and a Pierce Arrow; a man who had feted the rich and famous of his day on his yacht, private railway car, and bayfront mansion; the man who owned one of the finest collections of Baroque art in the world, housed in his own museum — he was now cash strapped and hounded by creditors. His nephew, Henry, wrote that at one time his uncle had over 100 legal actions pending against him.

Ringling did not seem to have enough cash on hand to take a foursome to dinner. Toward the end of his life, his estate and furnishings were advertised in the legal section of the newspaper to be sold to satisfy his monetary obligations.

A simple marker

Lastly, and perhaps not surprisingly given all the angst, he had been terribly ill. First a bad leg infection, then a thrombosis that incapacitated him, and later, when it was thought he had regained his health, he caught a cold that turned into pneumonia and he died.

Whatever bit of comfort the beleaguered Ringling might have taken from the thought that when he was laid to his much needed rest, surely his desire to be buried with Mable in their crypt at their beloved Sarasota museum would be carried out.

Alas, that did not happen either.

The family rigmarole about his last six feet of earth should have been unnecessary. When the circus king turned art collector built the beautiful John & Mable Ringling Museum of Art as a memorial, he instructed his architect to design a crypt in the courtyard opposite the entrance, under the imposing statue of David. There, among the magnificent art treasures that he had collected over the years, he and Mable would rest and be remembered forevermore by untold numbers of passersby. Or so he thought.

Ironically, the man whose life was spent wheeling and dealing, at getting the circus wagons and then the circus trains on schedule throughout the length and breadth of America — it was said he had a genius for transportation details — would not be buried where he wished.

In fact he would not be permanently buried at all until nearly 55 years after he died, and then it was nearly out of sight, beneath a simple marker, behind a nondescript chain link fence, with Mable and his sister, Ida, on the grounds of his museum.